DNI Tells Intelligence Community to Keep Mum about Secrets

In a memo addressing the Intelligence Community, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper warns about “blabbing secrets” to the media, calling leaking classified information a practice that is not “in.”

“We have established procedures for authorized officers to interact with the media,” Clapper wrote in the memo. “For everyone else, unauthorized disclosure of our work is both a serious matter and a diversion from the critical tasks we face. In other words, blabbing secrets to the media is not ‘in’ as far as I’m concerned. Let’s get on with our mission by keeping our secrets and serving our country.”

Clapper expressed a desire for intelligence community personnel to be like his grandchildren: seen, but not heard.

“We have established procedures for authorized officers to interact with the media,” he wrote. “For everyone else, unauthorized disclosure of our work is both a serious matter and a diversion from the critical tasks we face. In other words, blabbing secrets to the media is not ‘in’ as far as I’m concerned. Let’s get on with our mission by keeping our secrets and serving our country.”

It was not clear which disclosures Clapper referred to, but The Atlantic, which published the intelligence director’s memo, reported that a State Department analyst was recently indicted for allegedly telling Fox News what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded about how North Korea would respond to diplomatic and military pressure. The magazine also mentioned whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, which has published more than 90,000 Afghan war documents and last week leaked a classified CIA Red Cell paper.

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